


Let him cry

by winter_angst



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cheating, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_angst/pseuds/winter_angst
Summary: Jack's had enough.
Relationships: Jack Rollins/Brock Rumlow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Let him cry

Jack holds tight to Brock. His body is shuddering violently, wracked with emotion and agony that Jack feels echoing in his own soul. It's a feeling that comes on when he wakes up alone, Brock’s side of the bed cold, uninhabited. Jack does all he can ease Brock’s pain -- he always does -- but his own pain is increasingly debilitating. When he closes his eyes he sees himself in their bedroom packing his things. He sees him scrawling a note, a long one that fleshes out why he’s leaving, but when he cracks open that possibility vanishes. He can’t leave Brock, can’t even fathom life without him even if it promises freedom from this particular kind of suffering. Jack came into the relationship knowing Brock was a fractured man carrying with him a traumatic past. Jack always places fault in that and never in Brock. Try as he might, he can never be angry with him. 

He’s not angry as Brock clings to him, words slurring together and sometimes unintelligible. Each tear drop is like acid rain to Jack, stinging his skin with ghosts of Brock’s pain. He wishes that he could dismiss Brock’s confessions as drunken words that mean nothing but he knows that the infidelity he laments about is very real. It's four am and Jack’s eyes are itchy and wet though he doesn’t dare to let any tears slip free. He needs to be strong for the both of them. It’s not the first time they’ve had this interaction and Jack knows it won’t be the last. The shock of having such an intimidating man so broken feels wrong. It seems to go against nature. Jack turns his eyes forward and fixes it on a photograph of the two of them at the peak of Mount Ellen, cargo shorts, CamelBaks and smiles. Pure unadulterated happiness, Jack’s arms around Brock, holding him close. As close as he holds him now. 

“I’m sorry Jackie, I’m so sorry,” he rambles. “I just couldn’t help myself. I don’t know why I do this, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Jack says softly, as he always does, but that was never the truth. The betrayal stings, even when it's only when Brock’s been drinking. He runs his fingers through his chestnut hair. “I don’t care, it’s okay.” 

He knows what comes next. A morning of Brock trying to make up for his sins with promises of it never happening again. He will swear off booze and stick himself onto Jack’s hip. And, as always Jack will know that it’s an empty promise and the time from then to the next breaking of trust was coming around the corner. Jack closes his eyes again and prays for strength to get through it. He’s so tired, so downtrodden that a part of him wants to push Brock away. But it’s the only time Jack sees Brock cry. Normally Brock is passionate but never emotional. He’s quick to temper but even quicker to cool off. This side of him is something else. Jack often wonders where the man he fell in love with has gone. He holds out hope that it’s still inside him, buried beneath the rumble of undealt with emotional contusions. Counselling is above their pay grade so they make do with trying to be as open as honest but Jack is never open about the pain days like this bring him. It’s hard to explain how a human heart can crack and Jack’s heart is full of them. It brings a heaviness that he carries even on the good days when Brock makes it out as though Jack is the only person in the whole world. And it’s hard for Jack too because the world always stops when he sees Brock. A man he loves this much shouldn’t be able to simultaneously cause him pain. It was an unfair turn of fate and Jack doesn’t know what he’s done wrong to deserve it. 

There is of course an option for Jack. He can get out. He can leave. But it sounds far more simple than it really was. If Jack was gone, who would hold Brock when he cries? Who would be there for Jack when he has a hard day and just needs to hold someone? The fact of the matter is life without Brock is a life Jack isn’t certain is a life worth living. So he deals with pain. He tucks it away, lets his heart fracture, and hopes that maybe, this time, things will change. 

** ** ** **

Jack wakes up alone and panic strikes him to the core. His fragile heart swells in fear and he turns his head to look at the bedside alarm clock. Ten AM. The smell of bacon reaches him in time to calm his pulse. Brock hasn’t left him. He can breathe again. Jack lays back in the bed and scrubs his hands over his face. He doesn’t want to unpack the night before yet. It’s too early, too fresh. He wasn’t ready to rub dirt into the wounds yet. His body feels heavy with exhaustion and he’s got the startings of a headache from a poor night of rest. His eyelids are heavy and he spares his pine green eyes from the splotch of sunlight reflecting off the mounted TV. Jack prays to God for strength to get him through the morning, for him to be able to move past it the way he’s done so many times before. It’s not as hard as he always fears it will be. Once he lays eyes on his Brock, on the love of his life, forgiveness is a given. 

It's just the process of facing him; of getting out the safety of bed, out of the safety of separation where he doesn’t have to picture Brock with a faceless man. Eventually he works himself up enough to shift upwards into a slouched position. He swings his long legs over the bed and his toes rest again the beige carpeting. He drags his fingers through his dark hair and closes his eyes tightly asking for strength to carry him from the bedroom to the kitchen where it will all become so much easier. When he’s alone, it’s dangerous. The idea of leaving, of up and going without Brock is poignant and possible. He can’t allow this. He can’t live without Brock. 

He gets to his feet and stretches. His back is a bit sore from hunching from Brock’s crying form for hours earlier. He stands in front of the picture on Mount Ellen. Brock was in his powder blue windbreaker. They had climbed the eleven and a half miles on an unusually cool summer day, the sun bright and deceitful with a sharp windchill. Jack remembers the view of Lincoln Peak and the water spring they’d filled their water bottles in. They had accidentally wandered from the Black Diamond trail to a maintenance trail, Brock pointing all the while that it wasn’t right, and they finally found their way back to the trail. When they reached the flat peak and looked over the valley the love Jack felt for Brock, standing with his hands on the back of his head breathing through a side stitch, was all consuming. He tells himself it’s still the same Brock he loved back then. He leaves the bedroom and approaches the kitchen. Brock’s wearing a tank top and athletic shorts, clearly intending on going to the gym. 

Jack doesn’t want to be alone right now. He doesn’t trust himself not to do something rash. 

“I wondered when you’d be up.” Brock glances over his shoulder with a smile. Everything is as it would be if he hadn’t strayed. It’s how it usually is. But for some reason Jack is more tired than usual. Playing pretend isn’t as appealing as it usually was. Sweeping it under the rug and moving on no longer feels cathartic even if he knows the conversation would occur later in bed. The empty promises, the swearing off booze. All of it. “Eggs and bacon.” 

“Sounds good.” Jack’s voice is rough from sleep but it’s steadier than Jack feels. He thanks God for that. 

Brock turns from the stove to face him. He’s about a head shorter than Jack with chestnut hair and honey eyes. Some of Jack’s upset melts away as he locks eye contact with him but the exhaustion from the back and forth is still prominent in his mind. He still wraps his arms around Brock, cherishes the feeling of him in his arms. How could he leave Brock? He fits so perfectly in his arms, like was made for it. And if he left, Brock would cry and there was no one else could ease his pain the way Jack could. Brock tilts his head up for a kiss and Jack gives him one. It’s short, a bit apologetic on Brock’s end, and Jack thinks about the man he was kissing the night before. It’s sharp and it hurts so he dismisses it just as swiftly as it had occurred to him. 

“I was going to hit the gym.”

“I need to go to the grocery store, anyway.” Jack says, and it’s true. He hopes some time out of their apartment will solve this strange mood he’s in. Jack hopes it will help him find more solidity in his own standings. “Anything special for dinner?” 

“Tuna steaks sound good.” 

It’s almost laughable how their efforts towards casualness works out. From the outside it’s easy to think the men from the night before were completely different people. Brock is strong and confident in the safety of sunlight and sobriety. Jack is no longer his protector, he’s his own man with his own drive. Well, in most things. In some ways Jack’s the same man, passive and agreeable when a normal man would war against such betrayal. Jack’s not a normal man however. Not in that regard at least. 

“Tuna steaks it is.” 

Jack brews two cups of coffee while Brock finishes up breakfast. Typically Brock is useless in the kitchen but he’s good at breakfast foods and breakfast foods only. Jack finds that cute, even now, seeing him standing over the flat top stove frying up breakfast with certainty. He wonders where this man goes once he consumes alcohol. Where the vulnerability comes from that demands he seek solace in a new bed. Jack swallows thickly. He doesn’t want to be thinking about such things, typically he would have filed it away, but today’s different. It feels all wrong. Brock plates up and Jack sets down the mugs. As they eat, Brock’s socked foot rubs up and down his calf. Before Jack would find it comforting but right now he’s increasingly conflicted. The erroneous feelings towards the situation just builds upon itself. Jack’s hold tightens on the fork, nodding as Brock talks about wanting to focus more on legs. 

“I feel a bit disproportioned,” Brock says. “If I can beef up my thighs and calves just a little more I’d be satisfied.” 

Jack has heard such things before. Brock volleys between his upper body being too built for his legs and then his legs too built for his body. It’s an endless war with himself, a man dissatisfied with his own existence. That’s where Jack comes in. He loves him unconditionally so he can teach Brock to do the same for himself. Unconditionally, Jack reminds himself. It’s not as convincing as it usually is. Jack tries not to think too deeply into it. 

“I think you look fine.” 

“You always think I look fine. I want to look more than fine.” 

He must look more than fine if has such ease in finding partners to find solace in when he goes out drinking without telling Jack. Bitterness crept up Jack’s throat, sharp words dancing on the tip of his tongue in a way that’s never happened before. Jack realizes he’s in trouble and his grip on the fork turns white knuckle. Brock, thankfully, doesn’t notice, rambling about the work out routine he was planning. There’s a pilates class he’s thinking about joining on Tuesday nights. Jack thinks it’ll be nice to have him doing a nightly activity that doesn’t involve fucking strangers. The crassness takes him by surprise but he finds he doesn’t regret it. Today is shaping up to be a day full of alien reactions and strange, blasphemous, emotions. 

They finish breakfast, Jack maintaining his usual mood outwardly while grappling with his peculiar and painful feelings. Brock leaves to the gym, a peck to Jack’s lips, and silence settles in the apartment. Jack stands in the middle of the living room and looks around at the space that’s been home for three years. Brock’s nightly encounters have been occurring for the past year and a half and Jack is just so very, very tired. 

He sits slowly on the couch and stares at the wall of photographs. There are hiking photographs hung between vacation memories. Perfect moments when they were happy. Perfect moments when nightly confessions were far from mind and his love for the man beside him was all consuming. But right now it doesn’t feel all consuming. It feels draining. It feels like a chore, like a responsibility rather than a treat. Relationships aren’t supposed to feel this way and he knows that. 

Can he muster the strength and courage to leave knowing the pain it would cause Brock? Can he leave and let Brock cry alone? Was he strong enough? 

Jack drops his head in his hands and explores it as a real possibility. Just standing up and walking away. Leaving three years of one sided devotion for the unknown. He will be losing Brock, should he do this. And that cut him like a knife. A dagger to his poor broken heart. Brock was the bandage that kept it all together but holding the pieces together isn’t mending. All Jack has is the semblance of heart in his chest; the truth is that it won’t heal if he stays. It will continue to be shattered in Brock’s cold hands until there’s nothing left of him. He has to leave. He has to use at least an ounce of self preservation. 

So, Jack cries. His shoulders tremble and he’s alone as he falls apart. Hot tears roll down his cheeks leaving streaks behind that are quickly followed by more tears. Jack cries for a long time and then he cries some more. Then, empty and emotionless, he moves to the bedroom. He packs two duffel bags with his clothes and pauses by the house phone where a pad of paper is laid for important messages that come to their voicemail. He takes the pen in his hand and it shakes. Jack takes a deep breath and steels his nerves. The pen stops shaking and he writes a farewell note. 

“Brock,   
I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. My mind is made up. I hope you find happiness. I wish you the best.  
Jack”

He stares at it. It seems too short for three years, too cold, but it’s all that Jack needs to say. He doesn’t want to drag it out, doesn’t trust himself not to double back and unpack and go get tuna steaks for dinner. He thinks if he knew last night would be his last time holding Brock, he might have held him longer, cradled him closer, reveled in their final moments of closeness. Their parting had been a short kiss with the expectation of more to come but that wasn’t how it worked after all. 

With a somber mood hanging like bad perfume Jack leaves the apartment. He takes the key off his keyring and locks the door, slipping it under the door after. He expects for regret to hit him hard but it doesn’t. He’s leaving the warmest bed he’s ever known and it’s a relief to be going. He has a chance at true happiness now with a partner that wasn’t too broken to love him properly. He feels guilty for leaving such a fragile man alone but he has to be selfish. He can’t keep giving away parts of himself; he is running out of pieces to give. He gets in his truck and goes to a monthly motel paying for the first month. He shuts off his phone and takes a long, hot shower. He comes out dry eyes but heavy hearted. He turns on his phone and isn’t surprised to see missed calls from Brock as well as frantic texts. Jack types back a simple ‘I’m sorry’ and blocks him. 

It hurts more than expected but it doesn’t make Jack regret the action. If anything it lifts a weight from his shoulders. He lays on the floral patterned comforter and closes his eyes. He sees that picture of them on Mount Ellen and a sad smile twitches at his lips. He may have left Brock but he’s not forgetting about their memories. He never will. Jack knows that Brock was more than likely crying and he doesn’t move. He will have to let him cry. In the end he’s not the same man he met three years ago. Brock’s resolve has crumbled, allowing himself to self-medicate in destructive ways because he has Jack to fall back on. Hopefully he would find himself without him. 

Maybe, if he did, Jack would be back one day. 

But for now he was content to feel sorry for himself and heal.


End file.
